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Mitchel Thurman (Casebook)
Mitchell Thurman was a psychotic serial killer based on the character with the same name Mitchell Thurman from Police Quest 4. Background Thurman's life started out bad and went down from there. Thurman never knew his father, who was just one of a series of boyfriends that his mother ran through over the years. He didn't just have a broken family ... It was ripped to shreds. Thurman survived years of physical abuse at the hands of the men his mother depended on. She never got the help she needed to break out of those relationships. Instead, she sank deeper and deeper into them, the men became harder and harder, more cruel. And Mitchell escaped the only way he could-with a needle and whatever narcotics he could find to ease the pain. Eudora Thurman believed she was Mitchell's protector. That took a leap of faith, considering her marginal position and the abuses the boy suffered at the hands of the men she kept company with. But even mothers like Eudora Thurman cling to their illusions. When Mitchell Thurman was sent to prison for five years, Eudora Thurman made sure that her son was protected as well as could be expected, by working out a deal with Mitchell's cellmate-Dennis Walker. She would take Walker's messages to the outside. She knew about Walker from one of her boyfriends, who had a brief fling with the Brotherhood. And when she found out that her son would serve time in the same prison as Dennis Walker, she arranged for them to be cellmates and for Walker to help Mitchell escape the worst that prison can bring. With the help of some collusion at the Department of Corrections she was able to get everything in to place. When Mitchell Thurman was released from prison three months before events of the killings, he traced his mother to Hollywood. By that time, he was a walking bomb, primed to go off. It is not known what triggered the explosion. But Eudora Thurman died soon after her son returned home. His mother disappeared on his return. It is believed that Mitchell killed her, but no one found a body and he wouldn't admit to it. He started wearing his mother's clothes, and as to her body, he may have eaten her. It is believed that Mitchell murdered his mother, assumed her identity, then proceeded to act out a perverse fantasy of maternal protection that extended to the only person who had ever protected him-Dennis Walker. Mitchell Thurman, the theory goes, in the role of his own mother, killed the people who threatened to expose the drug and gun smuggling operation that Dennis Walker started while in prison and continued after his release. John Carey and his new partner Jim Varaz (Casebook), while investigating information about one of the murders they learned about one Eudora Thurman, who had been a client of the social worker Luella Parker (Casebook), another of Mitchell's victims. After originally mistaking Parker's remains for Eudora's they at first thought "she" was a sister of Mitchell Thurman's. After discovering the body was actually Luella Parker's at the Bitty Kitty, they were able to learn more about Luella Parker's connection to Eudora, and that she had been one of Luella's cases. From this information they were able to track down Thurman, who was living at the Third-Eye Theater. At the theater they found front door open and they decided to enter. Carey recommended they split up, with one checking rooms on the left, and the other checking other rooms. Carey checked an office that had pictures of women in various stages of undress from magazines which had been cut up with portions of pictures creating a collage of 'body parts' devoted to eyes and noses, another section with limbs, arms and legs. Carey discovered a small shaft leading to a tunnel under the office that was roughly the width of the street, and lead to Mitchell's apartment. Varaz had entered it ahead of Carey, and Carey had almost fallen into it, he entered it in an attempt to catch up with Varaz. He came out into another room with old worn couch, mannequins, a drafting table, and more pornographic images on the walls. Moving out of the larger room, he moved through the hallways. John Carey found Thurman in brightly painted kitchen of the apartment. She was dressed as a woman, singing and preparing a cruel meal in the kitchen. Carey questioned her at gun point as she held up a bloody knife, and wearing bloody yellow rubber gloves. Thinking 'she' was 'Eudora Thurman', she asked her where Mitchell was. The "woman" claimed Mitchell had 'left weeks ago'. Mitchell invited Carey to dinner, revealing the head of his partner Jim Varaz (Casebook), he was about to bake it in the oven. Carey kept his gun trained on him, and arrested him. When John Carey finally arrested Mitchell Thurman, the official body count included three police officers and an employee of the city's Social Services agency. Behind the scenes The biography for Thurman given in the back of the casebook appears to apply to the game's version of the universe more than the novelization. For example it mentions Mitchell was burned, however in the novel it seems that Carey arrested Mitchel more traditionally by keeping his guns pointed at him (and dog never appears in the story, instead he had a partner who was killed and beheaded while Carey was investigating the theater). If Thurman had tried anything he would likely ended up being shot instead. Secondly, there is the matter of the number of victims, which in the novel is officially four total (though possibly five as there is the body of Eudora Thurman, however her way of death didn't fit the other crimes, and possibly killed by someone else associated with Thurman). However, the hintbook section might suggest that he left Mitchel to die in the game: :Your adventure soon reaches a sizzling finish, with Thurman screaming and writhing on the floor in agony, the flames engulfing his head, setting his cheap wig ablaze. You could run to the kitchen for some water to douse the flames, but you remember that the kitchen cabinets are all glued shut and the Dixie cup dispenser in the bathroom is empty. Besides, you think, the murdering psychopath wailing on the floor in front of you will be burning in hell anyway-he might as well get used to it. However, it also doesn't say he 'died' so it gives it time to fit into the explanation given in the bio as to outcome after he was burned, and then arrested.